oh my heavens those are really cute! I don't think I would have even known these were cats!

scott r,

They are cute and are already learning to do many things. I didn't know at first they were kittens either until I bent down and really looked. It almost was dark outside when I found them. I sure am tired from feeding them round the clock though. I also took videos of them. They have the cutest mew.

I decided to try a “goody bag” of the ingredients I have on hand, for my first experiment. Where I am stumped is I measured one teaspoon of each of the ingredients I have and each one weighed 0.1 oz. I don’t know if my scale isn’t good enough to weigh or not. The ingredients I weighed are diastatic malt powder (King Arthur), Hodgson Mill vital wheat gluten, high heat non-fat milk powder, unflavored gelatin, Fruit Fresh and Lecithin granules. Since I might maybe first add the goody bag as 1% of the flour in the formula, do I just now go about maybe measuring out a tablespoon of each ingredient to put into the “goody bag” and then try to calculate how much that relates to one cup of flour?

Also since I am going to add a “goody bag”, I think I am going with Better for Bread flour for the Lehmann dough. If I have time tomorrow I will mix the two Lehmann doughs to be made at market Tuesday.

I did add 1% Milk Replacer to one of the modified Reinhart doughs for Tuesday. I will report how that turned out on my modified Reinhart thread.

Norma, I think I see now - it sound like this is more of an exercise in learning how additional ingredients affect the dough than to create a dough conditioner to solve a specific problem or improve anything in particular.

To Scott's and Pete's comments, I would just add a couple comments and suggestions. I like with the idea of starting with testing individual ingredients, but you need to be mindful that in some cases, certain ingredients together will produce a result that neither will produce on its own and you should not be surprised if you get unexpected results when combining things you had previously tested individually. Vitamin C, is potentially a good example of this. If you put anything else in the dough that has the effect of creating oxygen, the vitamin C will act as an oxidizer strengthening the gluten. For example, glucose oxidase which is found in honey will do this (vitamin C + honey might be an interesting test). On the other hand, without oxygen, vitamin C will act as a reducing agent and break down the gluten as Scott saw when he used a lot of it.

Likewise, two ingredients may counteract eachother. One of the reasons bromate is so popular is because it works slowly. You can add a chemical reducer to make the dough faster and easier to mix, and the bromate doesn't kick in until proofing and baking when the reducer has played itself out. On the other hand, if you were to add a fast acting oxidizer instead, the two would cancel each other out.

Regarding ginger, for reasons I don't understand, in relativly small quanties, it supposidly increases yeast activity.

And just so I'm clear, you won't eat a nutritional supplement for humans because it may have been made from hair, but you will eat a nutritional supplement for cats that has zero legal standards for wholesomeness?

Norma, I think I see now - it sound like this is more of an exercise in learning how additional ingredients affect the dough than to create a dough conditioner to solve a specific problem or improve anything in particular.

To Scott's and Pete's comments, I would just add a couple comments and suggestions. I like with the idea of starting with testing individual ingredients, but you need to be mindful that in some cases, certain ingredients together will produce a result that neither will produce on its own and you should not be surprised if you get unexpected results when combining things you had previously tested individually. Vitamin C, is potentially a good example of this. If you put anything else in the dough that has the effect of creating oxygen, the vitamin C will act as an oxidizer strengthening the gluten. For example, glucose oxidase which is found in honey will do this (vitamin C + honey might be an interesting test). On the other hand, without oxygen, vitamin C will act as a reducing agent and break down the gluten as Scott saw when he used a lot of it.

Likewise, two ingredients may counteract eachother. One of the reasons bromate is so popular is because it works slowly. You can add a chemical reducer to make the dough faster and easier to mix, and the bromate doesn't kick in until proofing and baking when the reducer has played itself out. On the other hand, if you were to add a fast acting oxidizer instead, the two would cancel each other out.

Regarding ginger, for reasons I don't understand, in relativly small quanties, it supposidly increases yeast activity.

And just so I'm clear, you won't eat a nutritional supplement for humans because it may have been made from hair, but you will eat a nutritional supplement for cats that has zero legal standards for wholesomeness?

CL

Craig,

You are right this experiment is more like an exercise in learning how different or all ingredients combined will affect dough. I really don’t want to improve on any doughs I am now working on. I am just adding or subtracting regular ingredients for the test of those doughs.

I appreciate your advise and scott r’s advise that certain ingredients probably will get unexpected results when mixed together. I can understand two ingredients might counteract together. I really don’t understand how ginger works either, but I am willing to give that a try. I might pick some of that up at the grocery store tomorrow. The only reason I might first try a “goody bag” is that it would be easier, but I don’t expect good results the first time out. I have learned though much trial and error usually things don’t work out for awhile.

Your ideas are good of trying potato flour/flakes, pectin powder, soy powder, corn starch, and vinegar. I read somewhere that potato flakes are really good for dough. I probably will do those experiments later.

As for the L-cysteine when I first heard it was made from human hair, that just grossed me out. I would try it now in an experiment. The nutritional supplement for cats I don’t think is really bad in small amounts. If a small kitten can survive and grow on it, it can’t be that bad for humans. Really I don’t know though. Probably not enough tests were done on humans. Even with the FDA doing all the tests on drugs and food for human beings, they are always finding something wrong with almost everything.

I decided to try a “goody bag” of the ingredients I have on hand, for my first experiment. Where I am stumped is I measured one teaspoon of each of the ingredients I have and each one weighed 0.1 oz. I don’t know if my scale isn’t good enough to weigh or not. The ingredients I weighed are diastatic malt powder (King Arthur), Hodgson Mill vital wheat gluten, high heat non-fat milk powder, unflavored gelatin, Fruit Fresh and Lecithin granules. Since I might maybe first add the goody bag as 1% of the flour in the formula, do I just now go about maybe measuring out a tablespoon of each ingredient to put into the “goody bag” and then try to calculate how much that relates to one cup of flour?

Norma,

I will do some research to see what I find. In the meantime, to the extent you haven't already done so, can you tell me the brands for the unflavored gelatin, lecithin granules and high heat non-fat milk powder, and also what the ingredients are in the Fruit Fresh product? I may not need all of that information but it might come in handy at some point. Also, do you plan to use ginger as one of the ingredients in the goody bag?

I will do some research to see what I find. In the meantime, to the extent you haven't already done so, can you tell me the brands for the unflavored gelatin, lecithin granules and high heat non-fat milk powder, and also what the ingredients are in the Fruit Fresh product? I may not need all of that information but it might come in handy at some point. Also, do you plan to use ginger as one of the ingredients in the goody bag?

Peter

Peter,

The Fruit Fresh ingredients can be found at http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=356982&storeId=10052&langId=-1 and the nutritional data can be found the same place by clicking on Nutrition. The Lecithin granules were bought bulk at Country Store near me. The only thing listed on that bulk bag is Lecithin granules. I would have to wait until either Monday or another day to find out that information, because they aren’t opened on a Sunday. The unflavored gelatin ingredients listed are: gelatin, fumaric acid, sodium nitrate, potassium sorbate, (mold inhibitor), salt, and dimethypoly siloxane (prevents foam). That also was bought bulk at the Country store. I don’t plan on adding any ginger this week, but might in the future. For high heat non-fat milk powder the only information I have on that is what I posted at Reply 232 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,12173.msg122458.html#msg122458

I went going on November’s Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://foodsim.unclesalmon.com/ Andtried Lactic acid powder or Hodgson Mill Vital Wheat Gluten and put textbook method for measuring for mass to volume for those two ingredients for 1 gram or one 1 oz. but got different numbers for both in teaspoons.

Norma

Logged

Always working and looking for new information!

buceriasdon

Norma, I don't mean to distract you in your quest but have you researched agar-agar versus gelatin? Many including myself consider it superior to gelatin. I began using it in my homemade vegan cheese subsitute after reading up on the differences, mainly of course that agar is processed from seaweed and not animal by products but also that it just works better. Don

Norma, I don't mean to distract you in your quest but have you researched agar-agar versus gelatin? Many including myself consider it superior to gelatin. I began using it in my homemade vegan cheese subsitute after reading up on the differences, mainly of course that agar is processed from seaweed and not animal by products but also that it just works better. Don

Don,

Your aren’t distracting me by suggesting different ingredients. I haven’t researched agar-agar versus gelatin. I appreciate your advise that agar-agar is superior to gelatin. Your research that agar is processed from seaweed and not animal products is interesting. I might also include that in my goody bag at some point, if I decide to subtract the gelatin. Right now I am adding what I already have on hand at home. Who know where this quest might or might not take me. I might find in the end that nothing really helps dough better than adding or subtracting regular ingredients found in pizza. Only time will tell about that.

Thanks for your interest and your ideas. I know you have done much research.

Before moving on to the next step, if there is one, I have some thoughts, comments and suggestions.

1. The Ball Fruit-Fresh product. This product includes dextrose as its main ingredient, followed by ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and citric acid. Dextrose is a glucose form of sugar and is about 20% less sweet than table sugar. However, using this product you will be adding a sugar form to your dough, which might add another effect to the finished dough and pizza. The extent of this effect will have to await the final numbers and actual tests. If the intent is to use Vitamin C to test its effects on the finished dough and crust, I would use pure Vitamin C and not have to assess the effects of dextrose and citric acid on the finished product. Vitamin C as a pure powder can be rather expensive in health food stores although grinding a Vitamin C tablet without any other additives would be an inexpensive alternative. When Vitamin C is added to flours, it is usually in parts per million. So, measuring out the amount of Vitamin C to use can, in itself, be a challenge. You might also want to check the flour bag for your Better for Bread flour. It is my recollection that at one time General Mills used ascorbic acid in its Harvest King flour before it changed the name to Better for Bread.

2. Lecithin granules. I can get information on a generic lecithin from the SelfNutritionData website, but after doing a couple of quick checks, I saw that there were variations in the numbers that give me less confidence on the quantity to use for your purpose. I'd like to suggest that you do some weighings of your particular lecithin product. Specifically, I'd like you to measure out 1/4-cup of your lecithin granules using a 1/4-cup metal measuring cup (without a lip). You should use a tablespoon or the like to lift the granules into the measuring cup, using the Textbook method, and sweep the top of the measuring cup. Of course, you should tare out the weight of the measuring cup. I'd like you to repeat the weighings five times and give me the average of the five weights. If you would like me to calculate the average, you can give me the raw data. I suggest that you use gram weighings.

3. Gelatin. Again, I believe I can get data on pure gelatin from the SelfNutritionData but not on a product that also includes fumaric acid, sodium nitrate, potassium sorbate, (mold inhibitor), salt, and dimethypoly siloxane (prevents foam). God only knows what all of those added chemicals will do to a pizza dough and the finished pizza. If the objective is to test the effects of gelatin, I would go with a pure version. However, that is your call. But, again, I will need you to do five similar weighings as discussed above in relation to the lecithin granules.

4. High heat non-fat milk powder. The information you provided does not give weight to volume conversions. Also, I have noted from my own experience that different brands of dry milk powder have different conversion values. In your case, I suggest that you take five weighings as mentioned above and give me the average or the raw data.

Before moving on to the next step, if there is one, I have some thoughts, comments and suggestions.

1. The Ball Fruit-Fresh product. This product includes dextrose as its main ingredient, followed by ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and citric acid. Dextrose is a glucose form of sugar and is about 20% less sweet than table sugar. However, using this product you will be adding a sugar form to your dough, which might add another effect to the finished dough and pizza. The extent of this effect will have to await the final numbers and actual tests. If the intent is to use Vitamin C to test its effects on the finished dough and crust, I would use pure Vitamin C and not have to assess the effects of dextrose and citric acid on the finished product. Vitamin C as a pure powder can be rather expensive in health food stores although grinding a Vitamin C tablet without any other additives would be an inexpensive alternative. When Vitamin C is added to flours, it is usually in parts per million. So, measuring out the amount of Vitamin C to use can, in itself, be a challenge. You might also want to check the flour bag for your Better for Bread flour. It is my recollection that at one time General Mills used ascorbic acid in its Harvest King flour before it changed the name to Better for Bread.

2. Lecithin granules. I can get information on a generic lecithin from the SelfNutritionData website, but after doing a couple of quick checks, I saw that there were variations in the numbers that give me less confidence on the quantity to use for your purpose. I'd like to suggest that you do some weighings of your particular lecithin product. Specifically, I'd like you to measure out 1/4-cup of your lecithin granules using a 1/4-cup metal measuring cup (without a lip). You should use a tablespoon or the like to lift the granules into the measuring cup, using the Textbook method, and sweep the top of the measuring cup. Of course, you should tare out the weight of the measuring cup. I'd like you to repeat the weighings five times and give me the average of the five weights. If you would like me to calculate the average, you can give me the raw data. I suggest that you use gram weighings.

3. Gelatin. Again, I believe I can get data on pure gelatin from the SelfNutritionData but not on a product that also includes fumaric acid, sodium nitrate, potassium sorbate, (mold inhibitor), salt, and dimethypoly siloxane (prevents foam). God only knows what all of those added chemicals will do to a pizza dough and the finished pizza. If the objective is to test the effects of gelatin, I would go with a pure version. However, that is your call. But, again, I will need you to do five similar weighings as discussed above in relation to the lecithin granules.

4. High heat non-fat milk powder. The information you provided does not give weight to volume conversions. Also, I have noted from my own experience that different brands of dry milk powder have different conversion values. In your case, I suggest that you take five weighings as mentioned above and give me the average or the raw data.

I thought it was the Pillsbury bread flour that had the ascorbic acid. When I rechecked the Betty Crocker website, the listing of ingredients for the Better for Bread flour does not show any ascorbic acid. If that is the case, you might want to get some Vitamin C.

For your purposes, I think you can use your plastic measuring cup. I have both plastic and metal measuring cups but I almost always use the metal ones so as not to introduce another varialble into what I do, even if the differences may be slight.

I did get Nature’s Bounty Pure Vitamin C-500 mg. at the store and Knox unflavored Gelatin.http://www.naturesbounty.com/VF/LABELS/L001510-NB.PDFI will weigh the Knox unflavored gelatin, lecithin granules, and the high heat non-fat milk powder 5 times and do an average of 5 times.

Norma, you're a sweet, warm and loving person to take those kittens on like that. Kudos to you, from a big time cat lover.

Ron,

I just recently told my daughter no more animals for me anymore after my dog is gone. Now look what happened. I had many cats in my life, but not for many years. The kittens keep doing new things each day. I am glad you are an animal lover, too! I never thought the kittens would have survived, but they did so far.

I can see by these measurements how things can get thrown off by measuring in volume measurements. I did eyeball the 1/4 cup plastic measuring cup each time and most of the time, I didn’t get the same weight.

This project has taken me considerably longer than I expected. For that reason, I have laid out below how I did everything. That way, you should be able to modify the final numbers, or change the dough enhancer formulation, however you wish.

I started by calculating the ounces per teaspoon for the various dough enhancing ingredients, based on the data you provided from your weighings and other data that I was able to find through Google searches. I found that the values for pure Vitamin C powder varied from 4g-5g per teaspoon. I elected to use the value 4.5g per teaspoon.

Next, I looked for the recommended amounts of the enhancer ingredients you have on hand per cup of flour. For this part of the exercise, I relied on the information provided in the Malisa FoodBlog. For one cup of Better for Bread flour, I used 4.25 ounces. That is basically the Textbook flour measurement used by the major millers/resellers of bread flour. Where ingredient quantities were specified for a loaf of bread, I used 3 ½ cups of flour to convert the recommended quantities to one cup of flour. 3 ½ cups of flour would be roughly the amount of flour to make a 24-ounce loaf of bread.

Finally, I calculated the total weight of all of the enhancer ingredients for one cup of the Better for Bread flour. That allowed me to then calculate the baker’s percent on the basis of that one cup of flour.

In your case, you may want to make a much larger quantity of the dough enhancer blend so that you can weigh out the ingredients on your scale. You may then want to take several weight measurements using your ¼-cup measuring cup, as before, and average them in order to determine how much a single teaspoon weighs (you divide the average by 12). That will allow you to convert the weight of the dough enhancer blend used in any dough recipe to volume measurements. Of course, you will also have to decide how much of the dough enhancer blend you want to use from a baker’s percent standpoint for pizza dough as opposed to bread dough.

This project has taken me considerably longer than I expected. For that reason, I have laid out below how I did everything. That way, you should be able to modify the final numbers, or change the dough enhancer formulation, however you wish.

I started by calculating the ounces per teaspoon for the various dough enhancing ingredients, based on the data you provided from your weighings and other data that I was able to find through Google searches. I found that the values for pure Vitamin C powder varied from 4g-5g per teaspoon. I elected to use the value 4.5g per teaspoon.

Next, I looked for the recommended amounts of the enhancer ingredients you have on hand per cup of flour. For this part of the exercise, I relied on the information provided in the Malisa FoodBlog. For one cup of Better for Bread flour, I used 4.25 ounces. That is basically the Textbook flour measurement used by the major millers/resellers of bread flour. Where ingredient quantities were specified for a loaf of bread, I used 3 ½ cups of flour to convert the recommended quantities to one cup of flour. 3 ½ cups of flour would be roughly the amount of flour to make a 24-ounce loaf of bread.

Finally, I calculated the total weight of all of the enhancer ingredients for one cup of the Better for Bread flour. That allowed me to then calculate the baker’s percent on the basis of that one cup of flour.

In your case, you may want to make a much larger quantity of the dough enhancer blend so that you can weigh out the ingredients on your scale. You may then want to take several weight measurements using your ¼-cup measuring cup, as before, and average them in order to determine how much a single teaspoon weighs (you divide the average by 12). That will allow you to convert the weight of the dough enhancer blend used in any dough recipe to volume measurements. Of course, you will also have to decide how much of the dough enhancer blend you want to use from a baker’s percent standpoint for pizza dough as opposed to bread dough.

Good luck.

Peter

Peter,

Thank you so much for even taking the time to do on all the calculations for my “dough enchancer” project. I know I wouldn’t have been able to figure out what you did. I don’t see how you can find all the data to figure it all out, even without all the calculations.

I will go over what all you have posted and try to make a “dough enchancer” tonight with using larger amounts so I can weigh them on my scale. If I have time I will make two Lehmann doughs, one without the dough enchaacer and one with it. I could let the dough sit out to simulate a longer ferment time either tonight or tomorrow. I think I am going to only go with 12" pizza for the first tests, because I have no idea how much flour I will use for these tests.

I went back to my post and deleted the baker's percent number so as not to confuse you. Since we have made a concoction of only the ingredients you have on hand, we really don't know how much of it to use for your purposes. In the example of the dough enhancer formulation given in the Malisa WebBlog, one tablespoon (three teaspoons) of her dough enhancer blend is used for a single loaf of bread. We don't know the weight of that tablespoon and, moreover, one tablespoon of her dough enhancer blend is very likely to have a different weight than one tablespoon of your blend. I notice that Malisa's dough blend formulation comes to one quart, but it is not clear if that is exact or accurate or just her best estimate. I would have to convert her ingredients to weights and see if it is possible to come up with what a teaspoon of her blend weighs. In your case, you might just pick a somewhat arbitrary baker's percent to use to get your project off of the ground. For example, you might try using 5% of the flour weight.

Another point to keep in mind is that the more ingredients you use in your blend, the more they take of the total dough weight. For example, if you had fifteen different ingredients, all or most of the other ingredients in the dough formulation would have to be reduced to make room for the dough enhancer blend if you are trying to keep a fixed dough weight. If you reduce the baker's percent of the dough enhancer blend to compensate, it is possible that any one or more of the ingredients loses some of its efficacy in the dough. This does not happen when you use one dough enhancer ingredient at a time using the recommended baker's percent. In your side-by-side Lehmann test, I think I would use your regular Lehmann formulation for both dough balls but just add some of the dough enhancer blend (say, 5%) to one of the dough balls. At about 5%, that would increase the weight of the dough ball to which it is added by a fraction of an ounce for a 12" dough ball. That difference might not be material. You could trim the weight of the dough ball with the dough enhancer blend back to be the same as the dough ball without the dough enhancer blend but that has the effect of reducing the baker's percents of all of the ingredients other than the flour, albeit slightly.

I think you will have to do a few experiments to zero in more closely to amounts of the dough enhancer blend to use if the results are good enough to warrant further testing.

I was just trying to figure out what amount of “dough enhancer” I wanted to try this time. I decided on 2% of the flour amount. I used the expanded dough calculating tool and my total flour weight was 190.85 grams. I then figured out that amount is about 1 ½ cups of flour, if I am right. I then used about the recommended amount for bread from Malisa’s Food Blog, as you stated.